Category Archives: News

Today we got some very interesting news about two more upcoming features of the Heart of Thorns expansion! As we have expected for some time, the last core legend of the Revenant was today revealed to be Shiro the Assassin. And it honestly couldn’t have been a more welcome addition to the Revenant’s kit, since the other aspects hit about as hard as a kitten eyelash! The other big news item is that GuildWars 2 will be getting a new way to play called ‘Adventures’.

The Revenant’s new DPS spec seems to drop the last piece of the puzzle into what is looking like a very versatile (if not very nimble) class. Along with the announcement that Shiro would be the last legendary stance came the news that both main-hand and off-hand sword will now be available to the profession. So if you want to really BECOME Shiro, you can get pretty close, wielding twin blades just like the ancient assassin!

The official post has some very interesting details about three of the new sword skills and three of the new Shiro skills, but I’m sure we will see the rest on the next Points of Interest. Shadow-stepping, life-stealing, and mobility hinders seem to be the name of the game with the new skills, so Thieves are probably going to feel a few of their toes being stepped on, but it looks like they’re differentiating these abilities enough that the assassin-specced Revenant will still seem like it has a unique place.

A little more unexpected was the reveal of the new ‘Adventures’ that will begin showing up with Heart of Thorns. These are new single-player experiences that bring with them their own leaderboards so that individuals may compete against all other players for daily, weekly, and monthly top scores. At this time, we’re not sure if they will be propagating backwards through the core game areas, or it they will just show up in the new zones, but a reference in the post to the fact that the new Adventures will leverage the new Mastery systems makes me think that they will extend outward to the core game as well. I say this because of a sentence in the initial post on Masteries on the official website:

With the launch of Heart of Thorns, there will be two Mastery regions: the Heart of Maguuma, encompassing all PvE zones that are part of the Heart of Thorns expansion, and the core Guild Wars 2 world, encompassing all PvE zones currently available in the game today.

There has been a little bit of controversy over this newly announced addition, with some people complaining that the secret to topping the leaderboard of each Adventure will be out on the internet within a month, and that these things will cease to be fun, but I don’t buy that for a second. When challenges like this force you to use your wits and reflexes, there are never any silver bullets to automatically achieve greatness. Those who want to be the best at any particular Adventure will have to work very hard to get there, and some upstart who watches a YouTube video is not going to be able to just jump in there and take his or her crown.

I, for one, was very intrigued by the example Adventure that they shared in the original post, and I couldn’t help thinking of the shooting gallery in Divinity’s Reach. Oh please, oh please, won’t you finally open that puppy up for business (screenshot at the top of the page)!

As all of the Heart of Thorns pre-purchasers sit on the edges of their seats waiting for the first real beta weekend to be announced, ArenaNet has decided to give us all a little snack to tide us over in the form of a special weekend just to beta test the new Revenant profession! Starting this Friday at 3:00 PM Eastern, and lasting until 3:00 PM Eastern on Monday afternoon, players will be able to roll up a new Revenant – presumably using the beta character slot that we were all given when we made the pre-purchase.

So far, ArenaNet has provided us with an explanation of the Revenant mechanics, and outlined three of the eventual five core specializations that will furnish the Revenant with the legends that form the basis of its class features. We know about Mallyx, Jalis, and Ventari at this point, but it must be remembered that ArenaNet has currently said nothing about this new Revenant beta weekend providing us with any further details into the other two core specializations and their legends. In fact, the news article over on the main site makes a point to mention that we will get to play with the “newly announced” Ventari and staff weapon, so chances of anything new coming out during the test seem very slim.

Still, the prospects of getting to run the Revenant – even a much-limited form of the final Revenant – through its paces in PvE, WvW, and sPvP (including the new Stronghold game mode!) are pretty exciting. I, for one, can’t wait to go straight to sPvP and start playing with the full trait bars. Then I’m sure I’ll get my butt handed to me over and over again in Stronghold. That will be so fun, however, that the losses won’t bother me a bit!

How do you plan to spend your preview time with the Revenant? Fancy leveling one up in the core game, or would you rather try one out in the Eternal Battlegrounds? Let us know in the comments below!